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Spine

Spine is the high-speed, multi-threaded poller replacement for cmd.php. Written in C, it provides dramatic performance improvements for data collection. Where cmd.php can take several minutes to poll large installations, Spine routinely polls tens of thousands of data sources in well under 60 seconds on modern multi-core hardware.

Spine does not replace your cron or systemd scheduling entries. The scheduler entry point remains poller.php. When Spine is selected as the poller engine, poller.php launches Spine processes to perform the data collection across all configured devices.

Spine Architecture and Operating Principles

  1. Multi-Threaded Polling: Spine executes a thread-per-device polling model within multiple concurrent processes, allowing hundreds of metrics to be collected simultaneously.
  2. Persistent PHP Script Server: For custom scripts, Spine starts and maintains long-running PHP script server processes (script_server.php). This eliminates the heavy overhead of repeatedly spawning the PHP binary for every individual script item.
  3. Privilege Separation (SUID Root): To perform raw ICMP pings without invoking external ping utilities, Spine requires raw socket access. Spine achieves this by shipping with the SUID root bit enabled (chmod u+s). At runtime, Spine strictly limits elevated privileges: it elevates effective UID only during raw socket creation (serialized by an internal lock) and immediately drops back to the calling user (such as apache or www-data).
  4. Direct Database Communication: Spine queries the Cacti database directly via the MySQL/MariaDB client library to retrieve polling targets and writes collected data directly into the poller cache and RRD files.

Installing Spine

Because Spine is written in C, it must be compiled against your local database and Net-SNMP client development libraries.

Prerequisites by Distribution

Enterprise Linux 8 & 9 (RHEL, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux)

Spine requires development headers found in the CodeReady Builder (crb) repository on EL 9, or powertools on EL 8:

  1. Enable the repository:

    # On EL 9 (RHEL 9, Rocky Linux 9, AlmaLinux 9):
dnf config-manager --set-enabled crb

# On EL 8 (RHEL 8, Rocky Linux 8, AlmaLinux 8):
dnf config-manager --set-enabled powertools

  2. Install compiler tools and development libraries:

    dnf install -y gcc autoconf automake libtool dos2unix help2man \
  openssl-devel mariadb-devel net-snmp-devel

Ubuntu and Debian

On Ubuntu (22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS) and Debian (11 / 12):

apt-get update
apt-get install -y build-essential autoconf automake libtool dos2unix help2man \
  libssl-dev default-libmysqlclient-dev librrd-dev libsnmp-dev

FreeBSD

On FreeBSD, Spine can be installed directly from pre-built packages or compiled from Ports:

# Using binary packages:
pkg install spine

# Or via FreeBSD Ports:
cd /usr/ports/net-mgmt/spine
make install clean

Downloading and Compiling Spine

Important: The version of Spine MUST match your Cacti version. Use Spine 1.2.31 with Cacti 1.2.31.

  1. Download the release archive matching your Cacti version (replace X.Y.Z with your version):

    cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/Cacti/spine/archive/refs/tags/release/X.Y.Z.tar.gz -O cacti-spine-X.Y.Z.tar.gz
tar -zxvf cacti-spine-X.Y.Z.tar.gz
cd spine-release-X.Y.Z

  2. Bootstrap, configure, and compile:

    ./bootstrap
./configure
make
make install

    By default, Spine is installed to /usr/local/spine.

  3. Set binary permissions (SUID Root):

    Spine must be owned by root with the setuid bit set so it can open raw ICMP sockets:

    chown root:root /usr/local/spine/bin/spine
chmod u+s /usr/local/spine/bin/spine

Configuring spine.conf

Spine reads its database connection parameters from spine.conf.

  1. Create the configuration file from the template:

    cp /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf.dist /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf

  2. Secure the file permissions:

    Because spine.conf contains the database password in plaintext, restrict permissions so only root and the web server / poller group can read it:

    # On RHEL / Rocky / AlmaLinux (web group: apache):
chown root:apache /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf
chmod 0640 /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf

# On Ubuntu / Debian (web group: www-data):
chown root:www-data /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf
chmod 0640 /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf

  3. Edit /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf and update the database settings to match your Cacti config.php:

    DB_Host       localhost
DB_Database   cacti
DB_User       cactiuser
DB_Pass       cactiuser_password
DB_Port       3306
#DB_UseSSL    0
#RDB_SSL_Key
#RDB_SSL_Cert
#RDB_SSL_CA

Testing Spine from the Command Line

Before activating Spine in the Cacti web interface, verify that it can connect to the database, query devices, and send ICMP pings without error.

1. Read-Only Global Test

Run Spine in read-only test mode (-R) with summary statistics (-S) and verbosity level 3 (-V 3). In this mode, Spine polls devices but does not write results into the database:

/usr/local/spine/bin/spine -R -V 3 -S

Verify that the output shows Spine reading /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf and completes with: SPINE: Execution Time: ... Total Hosts: ...

2. Device-Specific Test

To test a single device without polling your entire infrastructure, pass the host ID range using -f <host_id> -l <host_id>:

/usr/local/spine/bin/spine -R -f 1 -l 1 -V 5

Check the verbose output for ICMP ping success, SNMP retrieval, and script execution without errors.

Enabling Spine in the Cacti Web UI

Once command-line verification passes, activate Spine in Cacti:

Step 1: Set the Binary Path

  1. Log in to Cacti as an administrator.
  2. Navigate to Console > Configuration > Settings > Paths.
  3. Under Spine Poller File Path (or Spine Binary File Location), enter: /usr/local/spine/bin/spine
  4. Optionally, set Spine Config File Path to /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf (if left blank, Spine automatically searches its sibling ../etc directory).
  5. Verify that Cacti indicates [OK: FILE FOUND].
  6. Click Save.

Alternate Poller Path

Step 2: Switch the Poller Engine

  1. Navigate to Console > Configuration > Settings > Poller.
  2. Change the Poller Type dropdown from cmd.php to spine.
  3. Click Save.

The next scheduled polling cycle by poller.php will immediately invoke Spine.

Tuning Spine for Optimal Performance

Spine parameters are configured at three distinct levels:

1. System-Level Settings

Configured under Console > Configuration > Settings > Poller:

Parameter Recommended Value Description
Script and Script Server Timeout 25 seconds Maximum duration Spine waits for an external script or Script Server call before timing out and returning NaN. Must be less than your polling interval.

2. Data Collector-Level Settings

Configured under Console > Data Collection > Data Collectors (select your collector):

Parameter Recommended Value Description
Maximum Concurrent Poller Processes 1–2 per CPU core Number of Spine processes launched concurrently. For a 4-core system, 4 to 8 processes is typical.
Maximum Threads per Process 10–20 threads Number of concurrent threads per process. Do not set higher than 50, as excessive context switching degrades performance.
Number of PHP Script Servers 2–5 per process Number of persistent script_server.php workers maintained per Spine process to handle script data queries.

3. Device-Level Overrides

Configured on individual devices under Console > Management > Devices:

Parameter Default Description
Device Threads 1 Number of concurrent threads dedicated to polling this specific device. Increase for high-density switches or routers with hundreds of interfaces.
Maximum OIDs Per Get Request 10–60 Number of SNMP OIDs bundled into a single SNMP GET request. Higher values increase throughput over high-latency links, provided the device agent supports it.

Database Connection Sizing (max_connections)

Each concurrent Spine process, thread, and script server requires database connections. Ensure your MySQL/MariaDB max_connections limit is sized adequately:

Total Connections >= (Data Collectors * Processes * (Threads + Script Servers + 2)) + 50

If this setting is too low, Spine will fail with FATAL: Connection to MySQL database failed.

Edit /etc/my.cnf.d/server.cnf (or /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf) and set:

[mysqld]
max_connections = 500

Restart the database server after changing max_connections.

Security Policies (SELinux & AppArmor)

SELinux (RHEL, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux)

If SELinux is enforcing, allow the web server and poller to establish outgoing network connections:

setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect 1
setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect_db 1

Ensure the Spine binary has the appropriate system binary context (bin_t):

semanage fcontext -a -t bin_t "/usr/local/spine/bin/spine"
restorecon -v /usr/local/spine/bin/spine

AppArmor (Ubuntu / Debian)

If using a confined profile for Apache or PHP-FPM, allow execution of the Spine binary:

# Add to /etc/apparmor.d/local/usr.sbin.apache2:
/usr/local/spine/bin/spine rix,
/usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf r,

Reload AppArmor:

apparmor_parser -r /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.apache2

Troubleshooting Spine

Common Errors and Solutions

1. FATAL: Unable to read configuration file! (Spine init)

  • Cause: Spine cannot locate or read spine.conf.

  • Fix: Ensure /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf exists and is readable by the user executing the poller (e.g. apache or www-data):

    ls -la /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf
chmod 640 /usr/local/spine/etc/spine.conf

2. DEBUG: Falling back to UDP Ping Due to SetUID Issues

  • Cause: Spine is missing the SUID root permission required to open raw ICMP sockets.

  • Fix: Restore SUID permissions on the binary:

    chown root:root /usr/local/spine/bin/spine
chmod u+s /usr/local/spine/bin/spine

3. FATAL: Connection to MySQL database failed

  • Cause: Incorrect database credentials in spine.conf, database host unreachable, or MySQL/MariaDB max_connections reached.
  • Fix: Test database connectivity manually with mysql -u cactiuser -p -h localhost cacti and increase max_connections in your MySQL configuration.

4. Verification in Cacti Log

To confirm Spine is functioning in production, open Console > Utilities > System Utilities > View Cacti Log. Look for the poller completion summary line:

SYSTEM STATS: Time:12.3456 Method:spine Processes:4 Threads:40 Hosts:250 HostsPerProcess:63 DataSources:12400 RRDsProcessed:6200

If the log displays Method:spine, Spine is running successfully.

Copyright (c) 2004-2026 The Cacti Group